


Selective Memory

by liamthebastard



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post Reichenbach, References to Suicide, honestly how Mrs. H puts up with those two I'll never know, if not it's just another Reichenbach fic, rated T for language nothing more, wear your goggles for johnlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 00:46:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/680760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liamthebastard/pseuds/liamthebastard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some people forget, some people refuse to remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Selective Memory

Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, Sherlock forgets. He’ll storm in, fling his new jacket –leather, and not nearly as nice as his Belstaff- over the back of his chair before he yanks the door of the refrigerator open. He’ll poke about for a moment, and then open his mouth and call out. 

“ _John,_ we’re out of milk again!” The words will slip out before he remembers, before reality crushes back on him and forces him to close the refrigerator and sink to the floor, limbs an akimbo mess about him. 

There is a hollow ache filling his bones, a weariness that slumps his shoulders forward. He knows this is killing him, killing him slowly from the inside out. He can’t keep this up, he really can’t.

He still refuses to buy milk.

***

John never forgets, but now and again, instinct will override his pain and make him shout. Particularly after a long day at the surgery, when he’s seen too much blood and pain to be fully thinking, he’ll be rifling through the cupboards, searching for something, and he’ll shout. 

“Sherlock, where in the bloody hell did you put my mugs?”

Even as he says it, he knows that Sherlock is gone, gone where he cannot hear John’s complaints or pleas. And so he pushes the feelings in, down to a place where they won’t touch him until he goes to sleep. 

But when he does sleep… the nightmares don’t stop.

***

Mrs. Hudson doesn’t say a word when there is sudden interest in 221C. The redheaded man looks familiar, but frankly she’s tired of always being the caregiver, always mothering those who need it. And this man clearly needs none of her help. He works decent hours, keeps quiet, is always on time with the rent.

So if now again she thinks she can hear violin music straining up from his flat… well she puts it down to too much of her herbal soothers. 

***

It’s three a.m. Three. A. M. As in, _three o’clock in the morning_. John sleepily stumbles from his bed and into the flat proper. 

“God dammit, Sherlock, I’ve work in the morning,” he grumbles without a thought. The name on his tongue jerks him awake. But the violin music continues, still soft, but just loud enough to have woken him and bring him downstairs. 

He can’t resist.

He follows the music.

***

The door to 221C bangs open. Sherlock drops his bow, not in surprise per se; he’d heard the doctor’s footsteps on the stairs, but more in excitement. He turns, a lie already half-formed on his lips, something that will make John safe once more, now that Sherlock has so selfishly endangered him, but one look at John’s face and Sherlock falls silent. 

“If you were trying to hide, playing an original piece wasn’t your best plan.” John breaks the silence, and Sherlock can’t tell if he’s angry, happy, hopeful… He can’t read John, and that, more than anything, terrifies him. 

For once, words fail him; leave his mind completely until his thoughts are reduced to simple feelings without sentences to rein them in. All he can see is John, all he can hear is John’s breathing, and everything else is utterly inconsequential. 

***

When she said she got all sorts, Mrs. Hudson meant it. Absolutely nothing could faze her at this point. Not the occasional shout for milk or tea mugs, regardless of whom they came from. Not music at all hours, or anxious pacing in the middle of the night. Not even shouts from the basement flat that sounded increasingly similar to rows overheard from the upstairs flat. 

She’s pleasantly pleased when the late-night pacing disappears along with that awful cane. And it certainly doesn’t surprise her when a certain ginger tenant’s hair has returned to black and the leather coat is exchanged for a long sweeping overcoat and fluffy blue scarf.

She’s simply happy he’s back safe, home in 221B where both her boys belong.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a few headcanons that got a bit out of control. Had to jot them down someplace.


End file.
